Privacy Policy
What Wmarks processes, why, on what legal basis and for how long.
25 August 2026
1. Controller
- Controller
- Jakob Klingels
- Legal form
- Einzelunternehmen
- Address
- Ohlsdorfer Straße 90, 22297 Hamburg, Deutschland
- Data protection email
- jakob.klingels@web.de
2. What Wmarks does
Wmarks checks text, websites, images, audio and video for supported technical provenance signals. It separates verified technical findings, declarations embedded in content, forensic indications and signals that cannot be verified.
It is not a statistical AI-probability detector. A missing signal does not prove human authorship, and C2PA or other metadata do not automatically prove AI generation.
3. Overview of processing activities
| Activity | Data | Purpose | Legal basis | Recipients | Retention |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hosting | IP, headers, URL, time, referrer, device/browser data | delivery, security, diagnostics | Art. 6(1)(f); (b) for contract features | Vercel | per Vercel plan |
| Anonymous allowance | daily rotating keyed hash of IP and UTC day, counters | free quota, abuse prevention | Art. 6(1)(f) | Vercel, Neon | deleted after the UTC day ends |
| Account/auth | name, email, password hash, language, verification state | registration, login, account | Art. 6(1)(b) | Vercel, Neon, Resend | until account deletion |
| Sessions | token, user ID, expiry, IP, user agent | login and security | Art. 6(1)(b)/(f) | Vercel, Neon | up to 30 days; expired rows deleted |
| Text scan | full text, word count, findings | perform the requested scan | Art. 6(1)(b) or (f) | Vercel | anonymous: transient only, never stored; with an account: see scan history |
| Image/audio/video | bytes, MIME, filename, size, container, metadata | scan and result | Art. 6(1)(b) or (f) | Vercel | bytes transient; filename in history |
| Website scan | submitted and final URL, HTML, headers, images | inspect target and signals | Art. 6(1)(b) or (f) | Vercel, target server | fetched content transient; URL not stored |
| Scan history", "user ID, kind, time, credits, provider states, filename, and for text also the original and analyzed text plus the full result", "history, free re-viewing, evidence, support", "Art. 6(1)(b)", "Vercel, Neon", "up to 31 days, unless opted out or deleted earlier by the user | |||||
| Credits | user ID, amount, balance, source, reference | balance and billing | Art. 6(1)(b)/(c)/(f) | Vercel, Neon | account-linked; records per retention duty |
| address, content, delivery data | verification, reset, contract confirmation | Art. 6(1)(b)/(c)/(f) | Resend, Vercel | per retention schedule | |
| Checkout/payment | name, email, user ID, product; Lemon adds payment data | purchase, tax, contract | Art. 6(1)(b)/(c)/(f) | Lemon Squeezy | statutory periods |
| Withdrawal/cancellation | name, email, contract reference, declaration, timestamp | statutory consumer process | Art. 6(1)(b)/(c)/(f) | Vercel, Neon, Resend, Lemon | evidence period |
4. The content you check
Without an account, the full text of a text scan is processed in working memory only for the duration of the request and is not stored; the same applies to file bytes. With an account, a completed check is stored by default for up to 31 days — for text this includes the original and analyzed text plus the full result; for image/audio/video, a shortened filename is stored with the result. This lets the check be reopened for free without running it again or charging further credits. This storage can be opted out of before the check runs, and any saved check can be deleted individually at any time; billing and credit records are kept separately and are unaffected by that deletion.
Images, audio and video are currently supported up to 4 MB, and text up to 60,000 characters. The file type reported by the browser is only a hint; the container is also inspected from the file itself.
A website check triggers server-side requests to the submitted address, its redirect targets and up to four images embedded there. Those servers see our server IP, user agent, time and the requested path including any query parameters. Do not submit private links or access tokens.
Wmarks does not use submitted content to train its own AI models. We make no statement about how the infrastructure providers we use handle customer content until the relevant contracts and settings are evidenced.
6. Recipients and providers
- Vercel Inc. (USA)
- CDN, hosting, server functions, security and runtime logs. Processing may occur outside the EEA under a data processing agreement and Standard Contractual Clauses.
- Neon / Databricks (database in Frankfurt)
- Accounts, auth, scan metadata, credits, orders, subscriptions, webhooks, audit data. An EU region does not exclude third-country support or affiliate access.
- Resend (USA)
- Transactional email: verification, password reset, purchase, cancellation, withdrawal and deletion confirmations.
- Lemon Squeezy / Sold through Link, LLC (USA)
- Merchant of record and authorised reseller: payment, payment instrument, VAT, receipt, refund. We ordinarily receive no full card or bank details.
- Google (only if enabled)
- Optional OAuth sign-in. Google controls its own sign-in processing.
For recipients outside the EEA, transfers rely — depending on the provider — on an adequacy decision, Standard Contractual Clauses under Article 46(2)(c) GDPR and any necessary supplementary measures.
7. Your rights
Subject to the statutory conditions you have rights of access (Art. 15), rectification (Art. 16), erasure (Art. 17), restriction (Art. 18), portability (Art. 20), objection to processing under Art. 6(1)(e)/(f) (Art. 21), withdrawal of consent with prospective effect (Art. 7(3)) and complaint to a supervisory authority (Art. 77).
Account → Privacy provides self-service export, scan-history deletion, Google disconnect and account deletion. Restriction, objection, complex access requests and correction of non-editable data are handled initially by email. We may request proportionate proof of identity.
- Data protection contact
- jakob.klingels@web.de
- Competent supervisory authority
- Der Hamburgische Beauftragte für Datenschutz und Informationsfreiheit
8. Account deletion and retention
Deletion requires re-authentication and express confirmation. An active subscription is first scheduled for cancellation via Lemon Squeezy; if that fails at the provider, the account is not irreversibly deleted and the request is shown as pending instead.
Sessions, OAuth tokens, scan history, the account and non-retained credit and profile data are then deleted. Order, payment, tax and required evidence records are detached from the operational account, blocked for other purposes and deleted once their retention duty ends. External identifiers remain personal data until genuinely anonymised.
Commercial and tax retention periods are applied only to the extent actually required. The specific mapping of document categories and the deletion periods that follow from it will be determined before commercial launch and added here.
9. Minors and changes
Anonymous checks require no account. History, credits and paid products require account and contract data. Paid offerings are available only to persons legally capable of entering into contracts.
18+
We update this policy when functions, recipients or the legal position change. Material changes affecting an existing contract are additionally notified in an appropriate manner. The published version carries its date.